Top 12 Oncology Nurse Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a standout oncology nurse resume means surfacing the skills that prove clinical precision, calm under pressure, and relentless advocacy for people facing cancer. Call out the strengths that show you understand complex therapies, anticipate complications, and translate hard science into care that feels human.
Oncology Nurse Skills
- Chemotherapy administration
- Immunotherapy knowledge
- Patient assessment
- Symptom management
- Palliative care
- Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic
- IV therapy
- Pain control
- Patient education
- Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) guidelines
- Clinical trials
- Biotherapy certification
1. Chemotherapy administration
Chemotherapy administration involves the exact preparation and delivery of antineoplastic medications, with vigilant monitoring before, during, and after infusion. Dosing, sequencing, timing, and route matter. So do safeguards, symptom surveillance, and rapid response to reactions.
Why It's Important
It directly drives treatment effectiveness and safety. Accurate delivery helps eradicate malignant cells, control disease, and protect patients from preventable harm.
How to Improve Chemotherapy Administration Skills
Focus on safety, clarity, and consistency.
Stay current on protocols: Review institutional policies and ONS guidance; refresh competencies routinely.
Two-person verification: Independently verify drug, dose, route, rate, and patient identifiers for every chemotherapy order.
Flawless communication: Huddles before first dose, clear escalation paths, and closed-loop communication reduce misses.
Safe handling: Use PPE, closed-system transfer devices, and designated areas to minimize exposure and contamination.
Patient teaching: Explain regimen, expected effects, red flags, and home precautions; provide written takeaways.
Early symptom capture: Track labs, vitals, and patient-reported outcomes; intervene quickly for nausea, neuropathy, myelosuppression, or hypersensitivity.
Emotional support: Normalize fears, coordinate resources, and connect patients with supportive services.
How to Display Chemotherapy Administration Skills on Your Resume
2. Immunotherapy knowledge
Immunotherapy leverages the immune system to detect and attack cancer. From checkpoint inhibitors to CAR T-cell therapy and cytokine or vaccine approaches, each class carries distinct mechanisms, monitoring needs, and toxicity profiles.
Why It's Important
Understanding immunotherapy enables safe administration, sharp toxicity recognition, thorough patient education, and steady coordination across fast-evolving treatment landscapes.
How to Improve Immunotherapy Knowledge Skills
Targeted learning: Take structured courses on immune mechanisms, indications, and adverse event management.
Read widely: Follow oncology and immunotherapy journals for new approvals, biomarkers, and practice pearls.
Conferences and case reviews: Attend tumor boards and workshops to see real-world decision-making.
Guideline fluency: Know current practice pathways for immune-related adverse events across organ systems.
Peer networks: Exchange tips with colleagues managing complex immunotherapy regimens.
How to Display Immunotherapy Knowledge Skills on Your Resume
3. Patient assessment
Oncology assessment blends physical findings with performance status, treatment tolerance, psychosocial factors, and functional goals. Baselines matter. Trends matter more.
Why It's Important
It reveals evolving symptoms, flags toxicity early, and aligns interventions with what matters to the patient, not just the disease.
How to Improve Patient Assessment Skills
Communication first: Use open questions, listen for the unsaid, and validate concerns.
Use validated tools: Pain scales, distress thermometers, fatigue and neuropathy assessments create consistent, comparable data.
Keep knowledge fresh: Update on new regimens, toxicities, and survivorship issues that shape what you assess.
Holistic lens: Screen for nutrition, sleep, mood, cognition, and caregiver strain.
Team approach: Loop in social work, nutrition, rehab, palliative care, and pharmacy early.
Teach self-monitoring: Show patients how and when to report red flags between visits.
How to Display Patient Assessment Skills on Your Resume
4. Symptom management
Symptom management means preventing, tracking, and relieving physical and psychological effects of cancer and its treatments—nausea, mucositis, peripheral neuropathy, fatigue, anxiety, and more.
Why It's Important
Better symptom control keeps patients on therapy, preserves dignity, and reduces emergency visits and hospitalizations.
How to Improve Symptom Management Skills
Structured assessments: Use standardized scales at every encounter and compare against baseline.
Proactive teaching: Before symptoms spike, provide stepwise plans and when-to-call guidance.
Interdisciplinary playbook: Coordinate with palliative care, pharmacy, rehab, and nutrition for layered interventions.
Evidence-based pathways: Follow current guidelines for antiemetics, growth factors, neuropathy, and mucositis.
Digital tracking: Encourage ePROs and remote monitoring to catch deterioration early.
Self-care tactics: Hydration, exercise as tolerated, oral care protocols, sleep hygiene, relaxation practices.
Rapid feedback loops: Reassess after interventions and adjust without delay.
How to Display Symptom Management Skills on Your Resume
5. Palliative care
Palliative care relieves symptoms and stress at any stage of serious illness. It runs parallel to disease-directed treatments, centering on what patients value most.
Why It's Important
It eases pain, clarifies goals, supports families, and often improves survival while improving day-to-day life.
How to Improve Palliative Care Skills
Advance communication: Practice goals-of-care, prognosis, and serious news conversations; use teach-back and calm pauses.
Symptom mastery: Keep current on pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic options for pain, dyspnea, nausea, and anxiety.
Emotional scaffolding: Screen for distress; connect patients with counseling, chaplaincy, and peer support.
Team integration: Invite palliative specialists early; coordinate across disciplines to avoid fragmentation.
Plan ahead: Normalize advance directives and code-status talks before crises.
How to Display Palliative Care Skills on Your Resume
6. Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic
Epic EHR is an integrated platform for orders, documentation, results, care plans, pathways, and patient messaging—anchoring oncology workflows from clinic to infusion to survivorship.
Why It's Important
Fast, accurate charting and data retrieval enable safer care, fewer delays, and cleaner handoffs.
How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic Skills
Personalize the workspace: SmartTools, order sets, favorites, and streamlined templates cut clicks and errors.
Decision support: Use oncology-specific pathways, dose calculators, and alerts designed for chemotherapy safety.
Interoperability savvy: Confirm that labs, imaging, and outside records flow in; reconcile aggressively to reduce gaps.
Ongoing training: Leverage Epic learning resources and super-users; practice in the playground environment.
Patient engagement: Encourage portal use for symptom reporting, scheduling, and secure messaging.
Extensibility: Explore Epic’s Connection Hub (formerly App Orchard) for oncology-friendly tools vetted for integration.
How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Epic Skills on Your Resume
7. IV therapy
In oncology, IV therapy delivers chemotherapy, targeted agents, hydration, blood products, and rescue meds straight into circulation—precisely and safely.
Why It's Important
Direct access allows controlled administration, faster onset, and tight management of complex regimens.
How to Improve IV Therapy Skills
Know the protocol: Maintain competency in vesicant handling, central line standards, and infusion reaction algorithms.
Pre-assess thoroughly: Review labs, vascular access status, and allergy history; choose optimal vein sites when peripheral access is used.
Use technology: Vein visualization devices and infusion smart pumps can lift first-stick success and safety.
Teach well: Set expectations about sensations, duration, and post-infusion care; emphasize hydration and activity as appropriate.
Aseptic precision: Follow sterile technique rigorously to prevent catheter-related infections.
Comfort measures: Consider topical anesthetics, warming, and positioning to ease cannulation.
Watch like a hawk: Monitor for extravasation, hypersensitivity, and rate-related effects; stop and treat immediately when indicated.
Keep learning: Refresh skills via simulation and specialty courses; debrief tough cases to refine practice.
How to Display IV Therapy Skills on Your Resume
8. Pain control
Pain management in oncology blends pharmacologic plans with non-drug strategies and relentless reassessment. The goal: comfort that lets life keep moving.
Why It's Important
When pain is controlled, patients think clearer, sleep better, and engage in treatment with fewer disruptions.
How to Improve Pain Control Skills
Assess often: Use validated scales and functional goals; document response and duration of relief.
Educate patients and families: Demystify opioids, set expectations, and stress timely reporting of breakthrough pain.
Pharmacologic layering: Apply the WHO analgesic ladder thoughtfully; add adjuvants for neuropathic and bone pain.
Non-pharmacologic tools: Relaxation, heat/cold, TENS, guided imagery, mindfulness, and physical therapy can amplify relief.
Team up: Partner with pain specialists and pharmacists for complex titrations and conversions.
Advocate: Address barriers—constipation prophylaxis, prior authorizations, and stigma—so patients get what they need.
How to Display Pain Control Skills on Your Resume
9. Patient education
Oncology patient education turns complex regimens into clear, manageable steps. It reduces fear, boosts adherence, and empowers action between visits.
Why It's Important
Well-informed patients report symptoms earlier, navigate side effects better, and make choices aligned with their values.
How to Improve Patient Education Skills
Assess readiness and style: Gauge health literacy, preferred language, and learning preferences.
Plain language: Strip out jargon. Use concrete examples and visual aids.
Mix modalities: Combine conversation, handouts, teach-back, and short videos or apps.
Invite questions: Normalize uncertainty; pause and prompt.
Reinforce and revisit: Summaries after each visit; check understanding at follow-ups.
Digital supports: Direct patients to vetted, readable resources and secure portals.
How to Display Patient Education Skills on Your Resume
10. Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) guidelines
ONS guidelines translate evidence into practical steps for symptom control, treatment safety, and patient education across the cancer continuum.
Why It's Important
They standardize high-quality care, shrink variation, and keep practice aligned with the latest evidence.
How to Improve Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Guidelines Skills
Ongoing education: Complete ONS learning modules and refreshers; apply updates promptly.
Embed evidence: Integrate ONS recommendations into order sets, checklists, and unit workflows.
Leverage technology: Build guideline prompts into documentation and decision support tools.
Feedback loops: Audit adherence; share wins and gaps at staff meetings; iterate.
Community and mentorship: Engage in ONS communities to share cases and learn from peers.
Patient-centered application: Adapt recommendations to individual goals, culture, and access realities.
Advocate: Support policies that remove barriers to guideline-concordant care.
Advance the science: Participate in quality projects or research that inform future guideline updates.
How to Display Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Guidelines Skills on Your Resume
11. Clinical trials
Clinical trials test new prevention, diagnostic, and treatment strategies for safety and effectiveness. They open doors to emerging therapies while building the evidence that becomes tomorrow’s standard.
Why It's Important
Nurses are linchpins in trial success—educating, monitoring, documenting, and supporting adherence so data are trustworthy and patients stay safe.
How to Improve Clinical Trials Skills
Deepen consent skills: Ensure true understanding, explore goals, and clarify logistics and commitments.
Data rigor: Document meticulously, follow protocol windows, and report adverse events accurately and promptly.
Patient retention: Anticipate barriers—transportation, scheduling, financial toxicity—and activate resources early.
Team coordination: Sync with research coordinators, pharmacists, and investigators; hold regular check-ins.
Regulatory awareness: Understand GCP basics, IRB reporting, and source documentation requirements.
How to Display Clinical Trials Skills on Your Resume
12. Biotherapy certification
Biotherapy certification confirms competency in administering biological agents such as monoclonal antibodies, cellular therapies, and targeted agents, with a focus on safety and toxicity management.
Why It's Important
It validates specialized knowledge and signals readiness to manage complex regimens and immune-related or targeted toxicities.
How to Improve Biotherapy Certification Skills
Pursue the right course: Complete the ONS/ONCC Chemotherapy/Immunotherapy Certificate Course and maintain currency.
Hands-on practice: Seek precepted experiences in infusion and cellular therapy settings.
Stay updated: Track new agents, indications, and toxicity algorithms; refresh competencies annually.
Join communities: Engage with oncology professional groups for case discussions and pearls.
Stack credentials: Consider ONCC certifications such as BMTCN as your scope and setting evolve.
How to Display Biotherapy Certification Skills on Your Resume
